A Religious Orgy in Tennessee Read online

  Such is Bryan’s legacy to his country. He couldn’t be President, but he could at least help magnificently in the solemn business of shutting off the presidency from every intelligent and self respecting man. The storm, perhaps, won’t last long, as times goes in history. It may help, indeed, to break up the democratic delusion, now already showing weakness, and so hasten its own end. But while it lasts it will blow off some roofs and flood some sanctuaries.

  * The Epworth League was a Methodist youth organization focused on religious development.

  William Jennings Bryan arriving in Dayton on July 7, 1925. He was greeted at the train station by town leaders, a band playing religious and patriotic songs, and a crowd of over 1,000 people. (BRYAN COLLEGE)

  Dayton, Tennessee. Robinson’s Drug Store is on the right. Owner Fred Robinson was one of many who thought the trial would bring a boom in tourism to the town, and he tried to capitalize on it by stringing an advertisement over Main Street. (BRYAN COLLEGE)

  John Scopes, left, walks to the courthouse with one of his attorneys, John Neal, center, and George Rappelyea, right. The “Read Your Bible” banner is typical of the many trial-related posters displayed around Dayton during the trial, and identical to one that hung in the courtroom until the judge begrudgingly removed it upon the strenuous objection of the defense. (BRYAN COLLEGE)

  Henry Louis Mencken (ENOCH PRATT FREE LIBRARY)

  Friday, July 10, 1925: The jury is sworn in for the case of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes. (BRYAN COLLEGE)

  Bryan addresses the bench during the trial. Prosecutor Ben McKenzie sits with arms folded to Bryan’s left. (BRYAN COLLEGE)

  Clarence Darrow addresses the court. Note the standing room only crowd. The trial was held in the Rhea Country Courthouse in Tennessee’s largest courtroom, which had seats for over 500 people – but no ceiling fans. (BRYAN COLLEGE)

  One of the tensest moments in the trial occurred when Darrow was threatened with a contempt charge for saying he didn’t think his client was able to get a fair trial in Raulston’s courtroom. Here, standing from left to right, defense attorney Dudley Field Malone and prosecutors J. Gordon McKenzie, Wallace Haggard, Herbert Hicks, and Tom Stewart listen to Darrow’s forced apology to the court. (Note the WGN microphone. The Scopes trial was the first ever broadcast live to a national audience. The man below the microphone stand is commonly misidentified as Mencken.) (BRYAN COLLEGE)

  Judge John T. Raulston issues a ruling from the bench. Seen here with the two policeman that he kept stationed on either side of himself with fans. Raulston carried a Bible into the courtroom every day, brought his family to listen to a Bryan sermon attacking the defense at the local Methodist church (sitting in the front row), and began the trial each day with a prayer—despite the vociferous objection of the defense. (BRYAN COLLEGE)

  Temperatures throughout the trial were in the 100-degree range. Here, Bryan shows one of the effects of the heat. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

  Due to the heat in the courtroom and to accommodate growing crowds, on July 20, 1925, Raulston moved the trial outdoors for what were expected to be closing arguments. Darrow surprised the court, however, by calling Bryan to the stand. Despite objections by his fellow prosecutors, Bryan agreed to testify. The two-hour exchange would go down in history, but not in the court record—Raulston expunged it the next day, saying it was irrelevant. Darrow immediately urged the jury to find his client guilty so that, as planned all along, he could appeal to a higher court. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

  July 21, 1925: Scopes listens to the jury render its verdict of guilty, which it did after only nine minutes of deliberation. Raulston issued a fine of $100, the minimum. After the verdict, Scopes addressed the court for the first and only time during the trial, saying, “Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom—that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution of personal and religious freedom.” The ruling was overturned two years later. The state never collected the fine. (BRYAN COLLEGE)

  Five days after the trial ended, Bryan died in his sleep during a Sunday afternoon nap. He had remained in Dayton to prepare a pamphlet of his closing argument, prefatory to a national speaking tour planned to capitalize on trial publicity. Here, on the same platform where a band had greeting him less than three weeks before, his casket is loaded onto a special train taking him to Washington, D.C., for burial in Arlington National Cemetery. Thousands lined the route to bid him farewell. (BRYAN COLLEGE)

  Appendix

  The Examination of William Jennings Bryan by Clarence Darrow

  Monday, July 20, 1925

  JUDGE RAULSTON: Do you want Mr. Bryan sworn?

  DARROW: No.

  BRYAN: I can make affirmation; I can say, “So help me God, I will tell the truth.”

  DARROW: No, I take it you will tell the truth. You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven’t you, Mr. Bryan?

  BRYAN: Yes, sir, I have tried to.

  DARROW: Well, we all know you have; we are not going to dispute that at all. But you have written and published articles almost weekly, and sometimes have made interpretations of various things.

  BRYAN: I would not say interpretations, Mr. Darrow, but comments on the lesson.

  DARROW: If you comment to any extent, those comments have been interpretations?

  BRYAN: I presume that my discussion might be to some extent interpretations, but they have not been primarily intended as interpretations.

  DARROW: But you have studied that question, of course?

  BRYAN: Of what?

  DARROW: Interpretation of the Bible.

  BRYAN: On this particular question?

  DARROW: Yes, sir.

  BRYAN: Yes, sir.

  DARROW: Then you have made a general study of it?

  BRYAN: Yes, I have. I have studied the Bible for about fifty years, or some time more than that. But, of course, I have studied it more as I have become older than when I was but a boy.

  DARROW: Do you claim that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted?

  BRYAN: I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there. Some of the Bible is given illustratively; for instance, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” I would not insist that man was actually salt, or that he had flesh of salt, but it is used in the sense of salt as saving God’s people.

  DARROW: But when you read that Jonah swallowed the whale—or that the whale swallowed Jonah, excuse me, please—how do you literally interpret that?

  BRYAN: When I read that a big fish swallowed Jonah—it does not say whale.

  DARROW: Doesn’t it? Are you sure?

  BRYAN: That is my recollection of it, a big fish. And I believe it, and I believe in a God who can make a whale and can make a man, and can make both do what He pleases.

  DARROW: Mr. Bryan, doesn’t the New Testament say whale?

  BRYAN: I am not sure. My impression is that it says fish, but it does not make so much difference. I merely called your attention to where it says fish, it does not say whale.

  DARROW: But in the New Testament it says whale, doesn’t it?

  BRYAN: That may be true. I cannot remember in my own mind what I read about it.

  DARROW: Now, you say the big fish swallowed Jonah, and he remained how long—three days—and then he spewed him up on the land. You believe that the big fish was made to swallow Jonah?

  BRYAN: I am not prepared to say that; the Bible merely says it was done.

  DARROW: You don’t know whether it was the ordinary run of fish or made for that purpose?

  BRYAN: You may guess; you evolutionists guess.

  DARROW: But when we do guess, we have the sense to guess right.

  BRYAN: But you do not do it often.

  DARROW: You are not prepared to say whether that fish was made especially to swallow a man or not?r />
  BRYAN: The Bible doesn’t say, so I am not prepared to say.

  DARROW: You don’t know whether that was fixed up specially for the purpose.

  BRYAN: No, the Bible doesn’t say.

  DARROW: But do you believe He made them—that He made such a fish, and that it was big enough to swallow Jonah?

  BRYAN: Yes, sir. And let me add, one miracle is just as easy to believe as another.

  DARROW: It is for me.

  BRYAN: It is for me, too.

  DARROW: Just as hard?

  BRYAN: It is hard to believe for you, but easy for me. A miracle is a thing performed beyond what man can perform. When you get beyond what man can do, you get within the realms of miracles; and it is just as easy to believe the miracle of Jonah as any other miracle in the Bible.

  DARROW: Perfectly easy to believe that Jonah swallowed the whale?

  BRYAN: The Bible says so. The Bible doesn’t make as extreme statements as evolutionists do.

  DARROW: That may be a question, Mr. Bryan, about some of those you have known.

  BRYAN: The only thing is, you have a definition of fact that includes imagination.

  DARROW: And you have a definition that excludes everything but imagination!

  STEWART (FOR THE PROSECUTION): I object to that as argumentative.

  DARROW: The witness must not argue with me, either. Do you consider the story of Jonah and the whale a miracle?

  BRYAN: I think it is.

  DARROW: Do you believe Joshua made the sun stand still?

  BRYAN: I believe what the Bible says. I suppose you mean that the earth stood still?

  DARROW: I don’t know. I’m talking about the Bible now.

  BRYAN: I accept the Bible absolutely.

  DARROW: The Bible says Joshua commanded the sun to stand still for the purpose of lengthening the day, doesn’t it, and you believe it?

  BRYAN: I do.

  DARROW: Do you believe at that time the entire sun went around the earth?

  BRYAN: No, I believe that the earth goes around the sun.

  DARROW: Do you believe that the men who wrote it thought that the day could be lengthened or that the sun could be stopped?

  BRYAN: I don’t know what they thought.

  DARROW: You don’t know?

  BRYAN: I think they wrote the fact without expressing their own thoughts.

  DARROW: Have you an opinion as to whether or not the men who wrote that thought …

  STEWART: I want to object, Your Honor. It has gone beyond the pale of any issue that could possibly be injected into this lawsuit, except by imagination. I do not think the defendant has a right to conduct the examination any further, and I ask Your Honor to exclude it.

  JUDGE RAULSTON: I will hear Mr. Bryan.

  BRYAN: It seems to me it would be too exacting to confine the defense to the facts. If they are not allowed to get away from the facts, what have they to deal with?

  JUDGE RAULSTON: Mr. Bryan is willing to be examined. Go ahead.

  DARROW: Have you an opinion as to whether whoever wrote the book, I believe it was Joshua—the Book of Joshua—thought the sun went around the earth or not?

  BRYAN: I believe that he was inspired.

  DARROW: Can you answer my question?

  BRYAN: When you let me finish the statement.

  DARROW: It is a simple question, but finish it.

  BRYAN: You cannot measure the length of my answer by the length of your question. [Laughter.]

  DARROW: No, except that the answer will be longer. [Laughter.]

  BRYAN: I believe that the Bible is inspired, and an inspired author, whether one who wrote as he was directed to write, understood the things he was writing about, I don’t know.

  DARROW: Whoever inspired it, do you think whoever inspired it believed that the sun went around the earth?

  BRYAN: I believe it was inspired by the Almighty, and he may have used language that could be understood at that time, instead of using language that could not be understood until Darrow was born. [Laughter and applause.]

  DARROW: So it might not—it might be subject to construction, might it not?

  BRYAN: It might have been used in language that could be understood then.

  DARROW: That means it is subject to construction?

  BRYAN: That is your construction. I am answering your question.

  DARROW: Is that correct?

  BRYAN: That is my answer to it.

  DARROW: Can you answer?

  BRYAN: I might say Isaiah spoke of God sitting upon the circle of the earth.

  DARROW: I am not talking about Isaiah.

  JUDGE RAULSTON: Let him illustrate if he wants to.

  DARROW: It is your opinion that the passage was subject to construction?

  BRYAN: Well, I think anybody can put his own construction upon it, but I do not mean that necessarily it is a correct construction. I have answered the question.

  DARROW: Don’t you believe that in order to lengthen the day, it would have been construed that the earth stood still?

  BRYAN: I would not attempt to say what would have been necessary, but I know this: that I can take a glass of water that would fall to the ground without the strength of my hand, and to the extent of the glass of water I can overcome the law of gravitation and lift it up, whereas without my hand, it would fall to the ground. If my puny hand can overcome the law of gravitation, the most universally understood, to that extent, I would not set a limit to the power of the hand of the Almighty God, that made the universe.

  DARROW: I read that years ago, in your “Prince of Peace.” Can you answer my question directly? If the day was lengthened by stopping either the earth or the sun, it must have been the earth?

  BRYAN: Well, I should say so. Yes, but it was language that was understood at that time, and we now know that the sun stood still, as it was, with the earth.

  DARROW: We know also the sun does not stand still.

  BRYAN: Well, it is relatively so, as Mr. Einstein would say.

  DARROW: I ask you if it does stand still?

  BRYAN: You know as well as I know.

  DARROW: Better. You have no doubt about it?

  BRYAN: No, no.

  DARROW: And the earth moves around it?

  BRYAN: Yes, but I think there is nothing improper if you will protect the Lord against against your criticism.

  DARROW: I suppose He needs it?

  BRYAN: He was using language at that time that the people understood.

  DARROW: And that you call “interpretation?”

  BRYAN: No, sir, I would not call it interpretation.

  DARROW: I say you would call it interpretation at this time, to say it meant something then?

  BRYAN: You may use your own language to describe what I have to say, and I will use mine in answering.

  DARROW: Now, Mr. Bryan, have you ever pondered what would have happened to the earth if it had stood still?

  BRYAN: No.

  DARROW: You have not?

  BRYAN: No, sir. The God I believe in could have taken care of that, Mr. Darrow.

  DARROW: I see. Have you ever pondered what would naturally happen to the earth if it stood still suddenly?

  BRYAN: No.

  DARROW: Don’t you know it would have been converted

  into a molten mass of matter?

  BRYAN: You testify to that when you get on the stand; I will give you a chance.

  DARROW: Don’t you believe it?

  BRYAN: I would want to hear expert testimony on that.

  DARROW: You have never investigated that subject?

  BRYAN: I don’t think I have ever had the question asked.

  DARROW: Or ever thought of it?

  BRYAN: I have been too busy on things that I thought were of more importance than that.

  DARROW: You believe the story of the flood to be a literal interpretation?

  BRYAN: Yes, sir.

  DARROW: When was that flood?

  BRYAN: I wouldn’t attempt to fix th
e date. The date is fixed, as suggested this morning.

  DARROW: About 2400 B.C.?

  BRYAN: That has been the estimate of a man that is accepted today. I would not say it is accurate.

  DARROW: That estimate is printed in the Bible?

  BRYAN: Everybody knows. At least I think most of the people know that was the estimate given.

  DARROW: But what do you think that the Bible itself says? Do you know how that estimate was arrived at?

  BRYAN: I never made a calculation.

  DARROW: A calculation from what?

  BRYAN: I could not say.

  DARROW: From the generations of man?

  BRYAN: I would not want to say that.